WANDERING GIRL

Wandering Girl is an autobiographical novel written by Glenyse Ward. She wanted to

tell her story by looking back at the past to see the ‘funny side’. She tells of her life from the age
of sixteen, when she left Wandering Mission, her ‘home’ since the age of three, to work for a
white family in the rural districts of the south‐west of Western Australia during the 1960s.
Ward uses the opportunity of telling her story to create an image of herself as someone
who has survived an unpleasant past without any bitterness or hostility towards ‘white’
Australians.
Ward presents her story through the eyes of a 16‐year‐old, very naïve girl, even though
she was thirtyseven at the time of writing it.
In our extract we have the scene in which Glenyse invites one of her friends to have
dinner with her, Mrs. Bigelow being away in town.
The girl has the chance to explore the house which is big and very luxurious, things with
which the girl was not used to.
The bedroom was “absolutely beautiful”, it was decorated with “pale wallpaper in flower
patterns”. The curtains were “deep pink color” and there was also a “fluffy white color” and pink
towels with the aroma of lavender. We can see that the colors are very neutral: pink, white and
they are all matching. The figure ornaments and those bird shaped and all the different shaped
bottles of perfume are a proof of the wellbeing of the person who lives in this house. The
perfumes make us believe that the woman was a very chic and elegant and also a person who
likes to care of herself. The aroma of lavender is usually used by ladies, not by teenagers, so we
can say that the women was around 40.
The girl is fascinated by this world and she wants to be part of it, even for a second. It is
her chance to taste it, to smell it. She takes a shower and “prances on the fluffy carpet”, she uses
perfume and also some powder.
The statement “ I was smelling so nice” makes us believe that the girl is such amazed by
the power that she feels she`s having that she could imagine herself living actually in this world.
It cannot be hard getting used to luxury and to the good life especially when you’re a servant.
But all these riches and this state of excitement are not enough if you`re alone. This is why she
decides to come a friend to join her for dinner.
Our character is here a sort of Cinderella. And she goes on with this fairy tale which
turned into reality when she chooses the “finest crockery which she only uses for very important
guests”. This is why when Bill, her old friend, which she considers an important person asks
her” Have you got the King and Queen coming for dinner?”. In this environment of luxury they
will indeed feel like royalties and the girl believes she`s got all the rights in doing so. After all
the hard work she`s doing in this house she deserves a moment when she can spoil herself. It will
help her to go on with the hard work.
“ I copied her fashion” means that in a way she admires her, because we don`t usually copy
someone`s style if we don`t like .
At a certain point she thinks that this is a dream. This is why she`s asking herself: “Was it
;possible that a slave girl in second hand clothes and an old handyman could sit up to a table laid
with best crockery eating a meal fit for a queen?”
In order to feel totally good and relaxed they decide to put on some music.
Living in the Bigelow's house was very lonely. It was a kind of loneliness that Glenyse
had never encountered. Each day felt like years, as Glenyse had no one to talk to. The next
passage express the best these feelings: “ It was more human having someone to answer you
back, than you answering only yourself back”. It can also suggest the fact that this is the climax
of one`s loneliness. It can never get worse than this.
Glenyse`s favourite song starts like this:” I love to go a `wandering, along the mountain
track”. The term wandering definitely expresses freedom, no strings attached. The girl misses the
times in which she wasn`t a slave, when she wasn`t surrounded by persons who didn`t treat her
well or as she deserved. The wandering and the mountain makes us imagine a landscape in the
middle of the nature which again suggest the idea of freedom, no hatred, no stress, only calm and
tranquility.
In the old of the extract the old man says that time flies when you`re having fun. Indeed
the two of them have spent a lovely day, singing and enjoying themselves. In this day they were
not servants, nor slaves but two people who enjoyed the company of each other, doing things that
every being should normally do.